Tag Archives: actors

I’m immensely proud to present my latest testing / portfolio shoot. It just came out in the semiannual printed Workbook. It’s the kind of conceptual shoot I get deep into — like staging a one-act play. You’ll find more (the great Milo Cawthorne with a dead fish in his mouth) on the website.

Shooting at the beach! What fun, right?

Right. But also sort of hell. Sand gets in everything, no matter how many blankets you lay down and how many lights you clamp up high. Without warning the tide surges up and soaks your stuff. The bathrooms are a hike. Seagulls attack your food. There’s nowhere to plug in. Wind topples anything not weighed down with 50 pounds of sandbags. Whether the tide is rising or falling, you’re constantly moving your actors and carefully placed lights with it. When it’s all over, your lenses and cameras are coated with a fine layer of gear-killing salt. Now go home and try to work the sand out of your 15 rented C-stands.

For those of you who are wondering: these images were all done in-camera. No compositing or mixing and matching in post. Great talent, careful coordination and lots of lighting.

Many thanks to the phenomenally talented actors (from right to left in that last shot): Ari Boyland, Milo Cawthorne, Olivia Tennet, Mike Ginn, David Delatour and Fleur Saville. Plus Paul Bennett, who nailed the octopus-head role. And makeup/hair stylist Stephanie Lawrence and always-on-the-ball assistant PJ McMullan.

For some reason I’ve had this image in my head for a few years now. It involves Victorian mariners lost on a boat, stranded perhaps, not going to say where since this is just a teaser. I had to get it out of my head and on to film (so to speak), so I gathered props and wardrobe and brilliant actors and my favorite crew from around the city, and I finally shot the thing. Took five days of scouting just to find the location. My little 35mm f/2 lens literally fell apart after I found the location near dark on the fifth day.

It’s probably my favorite shoot ever. Look for it in the spring 2013 Workbook, out in less than a month. In the meantime, there’s a fragment of it on my website, and I offer you these fine behind-the-scenes shots from my friend, the great photographer Max Gerber:

Even sailors need a little touch-up now and then.

I swear I’m not posing. Didn’t even know Max was shooting.

Wayne “Animal” Lewis. We had to tie him to the boat.

Not sure what YOHA means.

Because every shoot needs a starlet: Rose McIver, the not-dead sister from “The Lovely Bones.”

Milo Cawthorne, another great New Zealand actor and the source of my best jokes.

Props table.

That one’s perfect. Let’s shoot 140 more.

The talent and crew went way beyond my dreams for this one. My heartfelt thanks to all of you: